1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to systems and methods for enterprise data management and more particularly, to multiplexing back-up data from several sources onto a single storage device.
2. Description of the Background Art
Networked client/server computer systems are becoming increasingly more common as the “Information Revolution” progresses. In a client/server computer network, the server computer is a computer that runs a set of services which are available to the client computers. The client computers are computers that run application programs through which the services are requested. The client computers and server computers are inter-coupled via a network. Such services may include database management, Network Information Services (NIS), and Network File System (NFS) programs. The services may operate within an environment that includes a back-up process. A back-up process copies data from an expensive disk storage media to a much less expensive tape storage media so as to provide a back-up copy of the data.
Typically when client computer data is backed-up by a server computer, the server computer backs-up client computer data to tapes in a serial manner, that is, one client computer at a time. This means that the server computer schedules a tape drive resource for backing-up a particular client computer's data, and the tape drive is dedicated solely to that client computer until the client computer stops sending back-up data. In this manner, the back-up data are written to tape in a standardized format. One such standardized format is provided by the Tape ARchive (TAR) function of the UNIX operating system.
Dedicating such a resource to a single client computer during a back-up operation often does not fully utilize a tape drive's data through-put capabilities and results in poor use of a critical resource. Therefore, what is needed is a system and method for keeping enough data available so that that a tape drive's full through-put capabilities may be most completely realized.